


to think of time

by themotorcycleboy



Category: Stand By Me (1986), The Body - Stephen King
Genre: -CHARACTERS NOT MINE-, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Drug and Alcohol Use, F/F, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, Lachambers - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, Stand by me, The Body, ace is a little bit softer in this than the movie, and drinking, censored homophobic slurs, cherrill, content warning for swearing, death involving a car accident, duchessio¿, everything is minor except for swearing and smoking, gun mention, in this universe Eyeball didn’t drop out of school, injuries, it’s about the same level as the movie in terms of being triggering, mentions of sex but not explicit (they're 18), mentions of verbal and physical abuse, not ooc though, ¿
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26114026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themotorcycleboy/pseuds/themotorcycleboy
Summary: “What I’d really like to know, (and what I would ask him if I thought he would answer without biting my head off,) was why he chose me at such a young age. He moved to Castle Rock when I was 8 and he was 9, back when I was just a little kid who got made fun of by other kids and beaten on by his father.”- -Eyeball Chambers discovers poetry, and a part of himself in the process.
Relationships: Ace Merrill/Eyeball Chambers, Charlie Hogan/Billy Tessio, Chris Chambers/Gordie LaChance, Eyeball Chambers/Ace Merrill
Comments: 20
Kudos: 18





	1. to think of time—of all that retrospection!

**Author's Note:**

> -ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO STEPHEN KING-
> 
> title & all chapter titles from Walt Whitman’s “To Think of Time”

I don’t think I ever understood _why_ Ace was my best friend. Or more accurately, I didn’t understand why I was his.

Ace, in a world that made sense, shouldn’t have had any friends. He wasn’t good at talking to people and, as he would tell you unprompted, he didn’t like to. But even though he would never say it, I knew he liked to talk to me, which brought about the question, what did I have to offer?

I was never _smart_ , or funny or particularly interesting, but despite that, Charlie and I were the only two out of the Cobras who hadn’t dropped out of school. I’d thought about it countless times of course, but Ace always fought me on it, saying I’d never make anything of myself if I quit before I got anywhere good. Why he cared, I wasn’t sure, but he always drove me to school when it snowed and I was grateful I guess.

What I’d really like to know, (and what I would ask him if I thought he would answer without biting my head off,) was why he chose me at such a young age. He moved to Castle Rock when I was 8 and he was 9, back when I was just a little kid who got made fun of by other kids and beaten on by his father. The kind of kid who said, “My old man’s been drinkin’ a lot _lately_ , he’s on a real mean streak,” instead of the alternative truth which went, “My old man is a drunk who likes to drink beer around the clock and hit me and my siblings whenever he gets a chance.”

I wasn’t anything special back then, I didn’t have any cool scars or shitty jokes about crazy chicks or traveling salesmen. I was just a kid with a lazy eye who flinched a little too easily. But that didn’t stop him from making the shit everybody yelled at me like, “ _Eyeball!_ Eyeball Chambers!” and, “his-dad-beat-him-over-the-head-n-his-eyes-went-cross!” into something cool.

Looking back, I’m certain that Ace wouldn’t summarize his childhood by the friends that he had, but I like to think that maybe I would be a part of it, just like he would be a part of mine.


	2. to think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the lovely @fudgetunblr (on tumblr) for proofreading this for me <33
> 
> The poem used in this chapter is section 51 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”

The first thing I noticed when I stepped outside was that it wasn’t snowing, but it had the night before. It wasn’t the good kind of snow either, not the nice, fluffy kind for making snowballs or whatever, but the kind that just sort of melted and then got your shoes and the bottoms of your jeans wet. 

Ace had offered me a ride to school since he was on his way to Billy’s with Fuzzy and Mudgett, and I’m not stupid so I accepted. They planned to spend the whole day drinking beer and shooting darts in his garage, which I wasn’t too happy about. I kind of hated that they spent so much time together without me, but Charlie had to go to school too so I guess it was okay. 

I remember things felt a little off that morning. The air was that special, summer kind of humid, though it was only early March. It was cold and the streets were slushy; I really wasn’t feeling school that day and I probably would have skipped if Ace hadn’t offered me a ride. 

“Morning,” I mumbled as I approached the car, shivering in the cold air. Fuzzy was sat in the passenger’s seat, which I didn’t like at all. I always rode shotgun while Ace drove, that was just the way it was. I was Ace’s best friend, but it looked like Fuzzy and he had been getting along swell while I was in school. 

I threw my bag on the floor and slid into the back seat next to Mudgett. He started in on teasing me right away, that’s what I got for staying in school. “Aw, shut up,” I told him and he slugged my shoulder. 

I was about to hit him back but then Ace looked at us in the rearview mirror. I didn’t like the way his eyes looked when he was pissed off, they made him look too old for eighteen. He was only four months older than me but when he looked like that it was like looking at a real old man. He didn’t like people fighting in his car. He didn’t want us to rip the seats up. 

I felt kinda pussy for leaving it, but I just sighed and leaned forward on the seat in front of me. I was sitting behind Fuzzy so I flicked him in the back of the neck to annoy him. He swatted at me but didn’t turn around, like he thought I was a fly or something. 

Fuzzy wasn’t too smart, not book smart at least. He knew how to fight good and he was one hell of a poker player but he never did too well in school. He dropped out in the eighth grade and got a job at the local mom-and-pop shop stocking shelves. They didn’t pay him too good, but they couldn’t afford it I guess. He still worked there four years later so it must’ve been okay. 

It was real quiet the whole drive. I was always quiet before nine a.m. and Ace wasn’t much of a talker unless he was drunk, but I didn’t know what was up with Fuzzy and Mudgett. Maybe it was just one of those days. 

Ace turned the radio on at some point and flipped around until he found something worth listening to. When we got to school they all stopped being quiet long enough to wolf-whistle at me while I walked into the building. I flipped them off over my shoulder but I was grinning the whole time the doors swung shut behind me. I got an awful lonely feeling in my gut the second those doors closed, but I tried to swallow it down. 

The morning bell rang and everybody shuffled to first period. We were all pretty much late, but the teachers had stopped caring a few weeks into the year anyway so it wasn’t like it mattered. 

I really wished I had just gone with Ace, I felt that slow kind of tired that makes your bones ache and your head feel heavy. The old man had been drunk last night and stumbling around outside, pointing his gun at birds and the neighbors and anybody else that went near him. Christopher and I had been up all night too, making sure he didn’t shoot himself or anyone else. He finally fell asleep and we got the gun away from him, but he still managed to mess my face up pretty bad. 

I slunk into the classroom without so much as a glance at my teacher, Mr. Elmermann. He should’ve been happy, but I could tell as soon as he opened his mouth that he and I were gonna have a problem. “Mr. Chambers?” he called when I had just about reached my desk, “can I speak with you after class please?”

I nodded at him and was about to sit down in my seat when I noticed that somebody had left their bag on my chair. It was green and stuffed full of books and it had the name _D. Lachance_ scribbled across it. 

I shoved it off of my desk, ignoring all of the books and papers that fell out of it and hit the floor. _Fucking Lachance._

Everybody in Castle Rock loved Denny Lachance. He was the poster boy for a small-town hero, a football player with good grades and a full-ride scholarship out of state. When he was nine he saved a puppy from getting hit by a car, so that pretty much sealed his legacy as far as anybody here was concerned. 

I hated Denny. Of course I did, he and I came from different worlds. Him a golden boy of the farmland, and me a drunk’s son, felon’s little brother, thief, town bully, and best friend of Ace Merrill. (I was all of those things, but that wasn’t the problem. My problem was how Denny didn’t even have to try to be different, everybody just knew he would. Nobody was beating on him telling him he’d either be dead or in prison before he hit age thirty.)

The classroom filled after a few minutes and Denny came to get his bag. I could feel him looking at me as he picked his books off the ground, but I just ignored him and closed my eyes. 

I must’ve fallen asleep because I woke up to Mr. Elmermann tapping my desk. I looked around to see the classroom empty besides him and me. 

“Mr. Chambers,” he said slowly, eyeing me like he was trying to figure out my next move, “You are _dangerously_ close to failing my class, do you understand that?”

My head still felt fuzzy from sleep so I just nodded. I wondered what Ace and the rest of that gang were doing. I wondered if they had talked about me at all, or if they’d even noticed that I wasn't there. 

“Mr. Chambers, _please_.”

“Huh?“

Elmermann rubbed his temples, like just the sight of me gave him a migraine. He looked real tired and angry, and for a second I wondered if he was going to hit me. 

Instead, he took a deep breath and looked at me. “Were you listening to a word I said, Richard?”

“I was-”

“Eyeball, right? Eyeball would it do you any harm to open a book once in a while?”

I didn’t like teachers getting stern with me. It made me mad and kind of nervous too. My knee started bouncing. “No sir,” I told him. 

I wondered how long I had been spacing for. It wasn’t the first time that Elmermann had asked me to stay after class to talk, but he seemed to be in a worse mood than normal. I almost felt bad for my kid brothers and sisters who had to have him after me. It was always like that though, I handed them down my old teachers like they were clothes that I had outgrown. 

Elmermann stared at me for a second before opening his mouth. “Eyeball, has it ever occurred to you that I don’t like you being in my class any more than you do?”

He kept looking at me like he wanted an answer. I hated when teachers did that, like they were waiting for something real profound. 

“I don’t want to have you in my class again next year,” he continued. “You have a final coming up in a few months. If you pass it, I’d be willing to fix some of your previous grades.”

I didn’t like that either. I’d rather him just fail me than act like he was doing me a favor, but then I thought about Ace and Fuzzy hanging around without me and I said, “What do I gotta do to pass it?” 

I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much that the other guys could have a good time without me, but it really did. 

“All it is is an essay,” said Elmermann, “You have to score above a sixty percent on it. Do you think you can do that?” 

Teachers made me nervous. I didn’t like when they talked all proper at me. Sometimes it seemed like no matter what I did, I’d always lose: they’d yell at me if I didn’t do my work and if I did, they’d call me stupid and give me a bad score. It was like I could never make them happy. 

“An essay? About what?” I asked him. Writing papers was never anything I was good at. 

“Anything you want, Mr. Chambers,” he said, “so long as it’s school appropriate, of course.”

“Yeah.”

The warning bell rang and I picked my bag up and turned to leave. “I’ll be seeing you in detention today,” he called from behind me and I swore. 

I had English next, which was a breeze. The teacher had stopped caring about what I did a few months ago so normally I just slept or played solitaire or something. She would look at me and with real sad eyes sometimes, like she’d never seen a kid so stupid. 

It didn’t bother me much, but sometimes it made me feel a little bad. I didn’t mind her class, though I hardly ever did the work. I gave one of the books she assigned at the beginning of the year a shot and I actually really liked it. I tried another one but it wasn’t as good and I ended up disappointed. I read the first book two more times after that.

After second hour I had lunch. Charlie Hogan and I always sat together and once in a while Vince would join us. He only ever went to school when he felt like it, which wasn’t often. I used to skip a lot during lunch, but then I thought about Charlie sitting there all by himself and I felt kinda bad, so I didn’t skip lunch too much anymore. 

Charlie was already eating when I got to the table. 

“Hey man,” he said through a mouthful of food, “You seen Billy today?”

“Nah, I haven’t,” I said and sat down, digging through my bag to see if I had anything to eat. I didn’t, just some crumpled up papers and a book I didn’t recognize. “Ace and Fuzzy and them were goin’ to his place today though, so I think he’s home. Say man, you got anything to eat?” 

Charlie held his carrot sticks out for me to take one and I did, nodding at him. “How come?” I asked him as I bit into the carrot, “He owe you money or something?”

I looked over the book I had found. It was dark green and had some trees on the cover. In white font, it said _Leaves of Green • Walt Whitman_. I shoved it back into my bag and tuned back into whatever Charlie was saying. 

“- he doesn’t owe me nothing at all. I was just gonna talk to him. y'know? You like Billy? I think he’s real swell, y’know?”

“You’re asking me, do I like Billy?”

Charlie nodded. He was like the little brother of the group sometimes, he’d ask questions and then look at us with real wide eyes while we thought it out. 

“Well sure,” I told him, “Billy’s an okay guy.” 

Charlie grinned and nodded at me, biting into a carrot stick.

“Why you thinkin’ so much about him?” I asked and he was just about to answer when a tray slammed down onto our table. I flinched and then tried to pretend I didn’t, looking up to see who it was. 

“Jody Brooks,” I said like it was incredible. 

“Hey Eyeball,” she grinned and slid into the seat next to me. “Long time no see. The old man’s still kickin’ it I guess,” she said and kissed my cheek where it was bruised. 

Jody and I were neighbors in elementary school, so we used to walk home together. We were the kind of friends who fought a lot. She would make fun of my eye and I’d pull her braids, it was a real swell time. 

She got real mad at me when we were little because she asked me if I thought we’d get married and I said no. She didn’t talk to me for a week. We were seven though, so nothing we said mattered or lasted long. We kinda stopped being friends around that age too, not for any real reason other than I moved to the rough part of town and kids move on quick. 

“Hey, Jody.” I said, “how come you’re sittin’ with us and not golden boy over there?” I jutted my chin in the direction of the table she normally sat at. I could see her boyfriend, Joseph, along with a handful of other kids I didn’t care about. 

Jody got popular in middle school and rode it out through high school, she got especially popular once she quit talking to me. All the girls liked her because she was good at keeping secrets, and all the guys liked her because she had big tits.

“He’s being a real asshole to me, Eyeball. Joseph makes me so mad sometimes, do you know that?” 

Joseph Cox was one of Denny Lachance’s best friends. He was the kind of guy that grown-ups didn’t like but kids adored. I think the only way he kept from getting ranked on for having a last name like that was that he played football. He was good at it too. He was the kind of guy you’d think would be dating a cheerleader, but wasn’t. 

Jody was special, she had waist-length blonde hair and she wore these white dresses that made her look like an angel or at least something close. She would write these poems sometimes, the kind that teachers didn’t like because she put commas where they shouldn’t have been and she capitalized random letters, but they were good and everybody around here knew it, even if we didn’t know what they meant.

“Did you break up with him?” Charlie asked and she looked at him with wide eyes and a small smile.

“No,” she sighed. “I didn’t break up with him. Do you think I should, Charles?”

He looked embarrassed and shook his head. I grinned at him. He was acting like he’d never talked to a girl before in his life.

I guess I should’ve been happy that she was sitting with us too. I think I might’ve had a crush on her back when we were really little, but then I grew up and got over it quick. Once the novelty of girls wore off I just sort of quit liking them. They were alright I guess, but I’d only ever gone steady once or twice. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for loving, who knows?

She laughed and it went real quiet after that. I hated when it was quiet. It almost felt like being all on your own, or like maybe you were a ghost in a room full of living people and none of them could see you. 

I got that same bad feeling that I had that morning, but I tried to ignore it. I tried to swipe one of Jody’s french fries and she slapped the back of my arm but then gave the rest to me anyway. I think she might’ve been remembering those times when half of her PB&J was all I had to eat in a day.

“He called me a d*ke.” She said, suddenly. “Because I wouldn’t sleep with him.” 

Charlie and I looked at each other slowly, like we were gauging each other’s responses. “That’s asshole,” Charlie said eventually and I nodded.

“And that,” she said, getting up and walking around the table to him, “is why I like you.” She kissed his cheek and then waved at us. “See you guys around,” she said, and then she was gone.

Charlie and I sat there quiet for a few minutes, marveling at the way she came and went so quickly. 

“Are all girls like that?” Charlie asked me eventually and the bell rang. I laughed and shook my head.

“No way, man. That girl is _one of a_ _kind_.”

“Yeah.”

“You like her?” I asked him because most guys did, most guys would take one look at her and trip.

“She’s…” Charlie started, “Boy I don’t even know. See ya later, Eyeball.” And then he walked away, clutching the straps of his backpack.

I decided to cut class for the rest of the day, mainly because I just wasn’t feeling it. I had forgotten my pack of smokes at home so I was in a kind of bad mood anyway. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ace and the guys hanging around Billy’s without me. It gave me that real lonely ghost feeling to know that they didn’t need me to have a good time. 

I was about to leave altogether, but then I remembered I had detention with Elmermann after school and I knew I was about this close to failing as it was. I hung around the parking lot, sitting on parking stops and kicking around a half-deflated football somebody had left on the field.

The sun had just started to turn golden when I heard the final bell ring inside the school. I decided it would be better for me to be on time and bored than to be late; I was on thin ice with Elmermann as it was. 

“Mr. Chambers,” he greeted me as I walked into the library where detention was served, “glad to see you here.”

“Put a lid on it,” I mumbled and sat down at one of the tables. Detention usually went for about ninety minutes so I decided I’d look at the book I had found during lunch. 

I skimmed the first couple of pages to find that it was a poetry book. I never dug poetry too much, I always thought there was too much shit about life and death and the color green, but I figured I had a while left of detention so what could it hurt to read one?

I flipped to a random page of the book and found a poem. It went like this:

_The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them._

_And proceed to fill my next fold of the future._

_Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?_

_Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,_

_(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)_

_Do I contradict myself?_

_Very well then I contradict myself,_

_(I am large, I contain multitudes.)_

_I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab._

_Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?_

_Who wishes to walk with me? Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?_

I read it slowly, stumbling over certain words and phrases. By the time I was done, I was wishing that I was one of those smart kids who always seemed to know what everything meant. 

_I contain multitudes._

I snapped the book shut and stuffed it in my bag, suddenly hit with a weird sort of feeling. 

“Mr. Chambers?” Elmermann questioned, “Sit still, will you? You’re disturbing the other students.”

For the rest of detention, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was anywhere else besides school. I did that sometimes when I felt like I was going crazy. Usually when I was at home and the old man was screaming, but sometimes at school too, when a teacher was ragging on me and everybody was staring and I knew whatever I had done was wrong but it was too late to fix it.

When detention ended, I decided to walk to Billy’s house, knowing that Ace would be drunk off his ass and still try to drive home. 

I was glad to see that Ace’s car was still in the driveway when I got there, I had enough to deal with without having to worry about whether or not he had crashed his car and was dead in a ditch somewhere. 

l went down the gangway and around the back of his house so that I wouldn’t have to talk to Billy’s mom. Mrs. Tessio never liked me much and I wasn’t entirely sure why. It wasn’t like I ever did anything to her, I think maybe she knew how my dad was and expected me to be the exact same. I guess I really wasn’t much better. 

When I opened the door to the garage I was hit with the smell of beer. Everybody looked at me like they were surprised I was there, and then Ace went, “Eyeball!” like he was real excited to see me. 

He was weird when he was drunk, always one of two things: honest and excitable, or looking to fight. It was odd when he was the first one because he acted the exact opposite normally. When he was sober he wouldn’t even look you straight in the eye, but when he was drunk he'd stare at you for ages and then blurt something out like he couldn’t hold it in for a second longer. 

“Ace!” I called, and went over to him, “Hey, man.” He held out a beer and I took it even though what I really wanted was a smoke. 

“Eyeball!” he said, much louder than he needed to, “Where were you? You should’ve come today.” I could tell he was real drunk from the way he was looking at me, all bleary-eyed and tired. He seemed to be in an okay mood at least. 

“Well, I’m here now,” I told him and laughed.

He gave me a real lopsided grin and sniffed a little bit, leaning heavily into the wall next to him. “I didn’t think you were going to. You should’ve skipped or something...hung around. You could’ve played darts or pool or- I dunno.”

“I will next time,” I said, and chuckled at him again, “I swear.”

He looked at me for a minute and then cocked his head to the side. “I like your laugh,” He said suddenly. “Sounds all...funny. Like that uh...fuck, what’s his name? You sound like Woody Woodpecker.”

“Gee,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s good though,” he assured me like it mattered. “I’m fuckin’ tired.”

“I’ll drive you home,” I offered, remembering the reason I was even there, “The other guys too.”

“Sure,” he said. I had him head outside while I rounded everybody else up and got them to the car. 

“You better not barf on anything,” Ace said from the passenger seat, looking at other guys in the rearview mirror. “I’ll fucking kill you if you barf in my car. God, I _hate_ other people driving my car.”

“Don’t get so fuckin’ drunk then,” I said and shrugged. I could tell his mood was slipping so I hurried and drove everybody home and didn’t mess with him too much.

He was quiet most of the drive and I could tell he was tired and fighting it. “You can go to sleep, man,” I said, “We’ve still got a while to go.”

“Fat chance,” he said and sat up higher, reaching over to flatten my hair down onto my face. 

“I’m driving,” I told him, trying to get him to quit it, but he just smirked at me and settled back down into his seat. The roads were darker out there and I was starting to get a little anxious going around the bends. 

Ace lived along the outskirts of town with his uncle, Pop, but he wasn’t around a lot so Ace mostly had the place to himself. His uncle wasn’t too good of a guy. He sold drugs I think, Ace would never tell me too much about it but I knew he was definitely on the other side of the law. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive I guess, so I didn’t ask about him much.

“Eyeball?” Ace asked when we were about 10 minutes away from his house. I hummed in response, keeping my eyes locked on the road. I loved driving Ace’s car but the dark made me worried I was gonna hit something. 

“Nothin’.” He said, “Nevermind.” I glanced over at him. The moonlight through the trees was casting funny shadows on his face, like some swirled rug or something. 

“Okay,” I said because I didn’t have anything else to say. He huffed out a laugh and I felt sort of strange. It hit me for a second that there was nobody else in the whole world like him, but I wasn’t sure where the thought came from.

“I’m fucking tired,” he repeated for the millionth time, “Hurry _up_.” 

“Just go to sleep, man. Quit complaining already,” I told him. By the time we drove the last few blocks to his house, he was out cold. 

“Ace,” I said when we got there, “Ace, wake up.” He groaned and mumbled something at me and I sighed. “Goddammit, Ace. We’re at your house, get up.”

I got out of the car, walked around to his side, and opened the door. “Out,” I instructed and he finally got out but he made a big show of it, whining about the cold air and how he was tired. Once he was out he just stood there, blinking at me like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. I groaned, just as dramatic as he was, and took his arm and draped it across my shoulder, “Come on, I've got your damn keys,” I said softly.

I unlocked the door and led him inside to his room, where he collapsed on the bed and was asleep in an instant. I decided it was late and I was tired too so I stayed the night, sleeping on the pull-out mattress in the living room. 

I couldn’t sleep right away because my mind kept wandering. _I contain multitudes_ , I thought to myself. I wasn’t sure what it was that irked me so bad about it, but I knew that something was off. 

I finally fell asleep around three AM, and I dreamt something hazy about me and Ace in his car and the taste of cigarettes and lifesavers. When I woke up, I tried to remember what it had been about, but everything just slipped away. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
